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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136222">City of Plague and Shadow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/veramoray/pseuds/veramoray'>veramoray</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blades in the Dark (Roleplaying Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergent, Original Character(s), Original Story - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 06:34:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/veramoray/pseuds/veramoray</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Florence Hill, proclaimed academic and soon-to-be scoundrel in a gang of hoodlums, is given a second chance. Only time will tell if she truly deserves it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Characteristically Uneventful Day in Doskvol</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is just a little drabble i've cooked up for my BITD character Florence. one day i may flesh this out into a longer short story—i might even completely scrap and re-write it. not sure if anyone is interested, but i've been writing a bit as i try to discover her backstory and how she eventually integrates herself with and becomes a valuable part of the crew. tagged "canon divergent" because i do tweak things in canon sometimes and i can't be bothered to be 100% accurate all the time.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was hard enough to have a good day in Doskvol, but Florence Hill was having an exceptionally bad time.</p><p>Her coach had been late, for one—not that anything was ever punctual or proper in this rotten corner of the world—and then she’d stepped in a murky, oily puddle at the front steps of the institute, absolutely ruining her favorite pair of Madisons.</p><p>“Goddamnit,” Florence muttered, joggling her foot back and forth in order to dislodge the sludge from her shoe.</p><p>Some of the muck had spattered onto her pants leg as well, which didn’t do much to improve her souring mood. She ignored the way her foot squelched against the sole of her shoe as she trudged up the steps, a deep scowl etched on her face.</p><p>Everything here seemed to be tainted with dirt and oil, an unfortunately grimy result of the lamps that burned all day, providing little illumination to the otherwise pitch black streets. The darkness in Doskvol was nearly sentient, engulfing whole buildings within deep shadow—some days it was all one could do to see the nose in front of his face.</p><p>Florence didn’t have many prized possessions to her name (one couldn’t in a place such as Doskvol, unless they were just begging to be dragged into a dimly lit alleyway by a bunch of thugs), but her shoes—her <em> shoes. </em> The perfect combination of comfort and class, the shoes that never failed to get her from place-to-place, and looking good about it too. </p><p>A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she allowed herself a brief moment to mourn their soft leather laces and shiny exterior. This particular set of footwear was perhaps the flashiest part of her ensemble, leading the rest of her to seem a bit tacky, from her tweed coat and now-wrinkly trousers, probably from sitting in the cramped carriage for too long, to the flat cap nestled neatly on her blonde head. The tweed jacket had a button missing on one of the cuffs, but she supposed as long as she kept her arms down and turned into her sides that no one would notice.</p><p>Perhaps she was putting too much consideration into the opinions of these Doskvolians, who appeared on a daily basis to be much more ragged and dirty than the last. But she needed to make a good impression—this was her first official day as Florence Hill, and the only reason she’d been up and about before the lamp-lighters was for this interview, which she’d received <em> rather </em> out of the blue now that she thought about it...</p><p>She’d unfortunately stayed the night in a hostel in Fogcrest, sleeping next to a grunt of a man who smelled of a leviathan oil processing plant and snored like a sandhorn. It wasn’t the finest establishment, but it was the best she could have done on such short notice (since her apartment had been closed off due to <em> “unforeseen events,” </em>which were, as much as she could tell with her eighteen hours worth of experience, not uncommon in Doskvol). </p><p>Not even one day into her new life and she’d already lost her home before she could set one soot-encrusted foot in it.</p><p>Her second-best option unfortunately contained an Echo (more specifically, a continuous loop of behavior left behind by the spirit of a woman lurking through the halls, fading in and out of existence as the ghost field periodically rearranged itself) to which Florence had promptly exited the establishment without so much as a word to the agent attempting to wheedle her into purchasing the property. She muttered a dismissive “absolutely not” under her breath as she hurriedly pushed her way out the door and down the front porch steps.</p><p>Luckily she had enough coin stored up to go house hunting later that day (she suppressed a groan at the thought, not looking forward <em> at all </em>to spending a perfectly fine afternoon poling down the filthy, turbid river canals in a slimy gondola when she could be reading, or doing <em>literally anything else).</em></p><p>She needed somewhere reliable to stop off for a while, but there was hardly a decent place in this side of town—the only side Florence could afford—and she wanted to at least be able to stay alive long enough to gather the savings she would need to finally leave the continent for good. Thugs were one issue, not to mention the last thing she needed was to end up in a ghoul-infested tenant in Crow’s Foot (because nothing attracted trouble more than ghosts). She needed to lay low, and Doskvol was the perfect place for anyone who might want to disappear. </p><p>First things first, she needed to get a job, and a house. And... maybe a new pair of shoes.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Halls of Academia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Florence finally arrives at her destination: the rapidly deteriorating but still sprawling institute of the arts, Charterhall University.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(this was supposed to be part of the last "chapter" but it feels weird wherever i put it, so it gets its own little home right here... this is intended as a bit of a flashback, so i can record the visuals of the institute and what it looks like. and add in a bit of lore too)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The institute wasn’t the grandest building in the Charterhall district, but it certainly stood out among the rowhouses and collapsing storefronts that were all mashed together in an industrial collage of crumbling brick and rusted pipes. Perhaps one day it had been lovely—if one took the time to scrape the grime and bat droppings from the once shining marble steps, and if one restored the columns and gilded wainscoting that had been pillaged during the Unity War—perhaps then it would appear closer to its former days of glory.</p><p>Now, Charterhall University was a shadowed husk of the grandness it had been in its prime. Like nearly everything in Doskvol, the prodigious building had undergone massive degradation. One could hardly brush against a wall without coming back coated in soot and dust, and the entire structure was hanging on by a thread—the towering, three-men-wide columns were ruined in many places, the walls crumbling and broken, sometimes even all the way through. Soot-streaked wallpaper peeled back to reveal rotten paneling, and behind that, the inner iron skeleton of the building that stretched up and arched over to create an immaculate roof that had once been plated with shimmering, aquamarine glass. Hundreds of years of burning oil lamps and candles had blackened the once translucent panes, though nothing could be seen beyond them but the ever-present,  infinite darkness that shrouded Doskvol and the lands beyond.</p><p>It wasn't much to look at now, but to Florence the institute was much more than a building. This was her new beginning—a second chance to get things right. If she could make it past the interview and into a solid, steady job, and save enough coin to hop a steamship and sail far far away, to the edge of the world if she had to, everything might just turn out alright.</p><p>So long as the ghosts of her past didn’t find a way to follow her into Doskvol, everything she had been working towards would go according to plan.</p><p>Florence’s hand tightened around the handle of her tattered leather briefcase as she stared up at the dark, looming structure of the institute. Black ivy clung to the marble walls in areas where soot wasn’t deep enough to chase away the vegetation—the only plant that seemed to grow freely and in great abundance for miles and miles. </p><p>She took a deep breath in, filling the cavity of her chest, taking in all the mix of fortunate and unfortunate experiences that had led her here: to the front steps of her future. All she had left to do was step forward.</p><p>Which she did. Into an inky black pool of what she sincerely hoped and simultaneously doubted was rainwater. </p>
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